RBI directs HDFC Bank to stop selling new credit cards

The Reserve Bank of India has asked a private sector lender, HDFC Bank, to discontinue the new sourcing of credit cards to customers on a temporary basis, along with its digital launch. The central bank has also asked the bank to stop launching digital business-generating activities that are employed under Digital 2.0 as well as other proposed business IT applications.

The RBI order came after HDFC’s mobile banking, internet banking and payment utilities reported outages in the last 2 years. Complaints of the bank’s payment system and Internet banking were also included in the complaints dated November 21, 2020, due to the recent power failure in the bank’s primary data centre. The Reserve Bank has also advised the Board of HDFC to investigate and determine the lapse.

On November 21, 2020, customers had complained that the payment stack in their HDFC bank account has become defunct. According to the bank, this was due to an unexpected outage (power failure) at one of the bank’s data centres.

Earlier, similar complaints were filed by customers on December 3, 2019, according to which they were unable to pay their loan EMI or else, they could not settle their credit card bills on time. However, rumours of a cyber attack were dismissed by HDFC and bank regulator was also informed in this regard.